Friday, October 31, 2014

"At first glance, Microsoft’s fitness-tracking device looks like another hardware foray for a company with a much stronger track record in software. Instead, think of the $199 Microsoft Band as a Trojan Horse to get more consumers using Microsoft’s data-crunching software–and perhaps open new opportunities for sales to businesses, too.

[...] The software is another example of the focus Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has put on consumer services that harness the company’s cloud and data-analysis expertise, an area in which he says Microsoft has leapfrogged its rivals. Nadella previously introduced a service called Delve that aims to predict which documents or contacts a user is likely to need based on factors such as what the user’s colleagues are working on."